Good News for Star Associates, Bad News for Others: Bonuses are Replacing Some Pay
As law firms look to replace a significant portion of associate pay with discretionary bonuses, star associates may profit but others will lose ground financially, predicts the Boston Globe.
Among the well-known law firms that are going this route is 700-attorney Nixon Peabody, at which bonuses amount to as much as 30 percent of an associate’s pay (except for first-years, who get a set salary). While bonus pay may well give extra oomph to the incomes of star associates, it likely will have the effect of reducing the incomes of many other young attorneys, the newspaper predicts.
“The old lockstep is going by the boards,’’ says Walter Reed, the managing partner of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. “We will have a system where performance-based bonuses will be more significant than they used to be.’’
